“No, but you used to have four of them. You’re not nearly so impressive in this shape.”
He laughed again, from closer to his chest this time. “You haven’t seen me hung all over with satin and beads like a dancing elephant.”
“Well, thank goodness for that. Can you stand up? Lean on me if you want to, but we should be gone from here.”
He clutched her shoulder—the long scholar’s fingers were very strong—and struggled to his feet, then drew her cloak more tightly around himself. “Which way?”
Passage through the woods was hard for her, because she knew how hard it was for him, barefoot, disoriented, yanked out of place and time. After one especially hard stumble, he sagged against a tree. “I hope this passes. I can see flashes of this wood in my memory, but as if my eyes were off on either side of my head.”
“Memory fades,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
He looked up at her quickly, pain in his face. “Does it?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry—did you tell me your name?”
“No. It’s Moon Very Thin.”
He asked gravely, “Are you waxing or waning?”
“It depends from moment to moment.”
“That makes sense. Will you call me Robin?”
“If you want me to.”
“I do, please. I find I’m awfully taken with having a name again.”
At last the trees opened out, and in a fold of the green hillside they found a farmstead. A man stood in the farmhouse door watching them come. When they were close enough to make out his balding head and wool coat, he stirred from the door; took three faltering steps into his garden; and shouted and ran toward them. A tall, round woman appeared at the door, twisting her apron. Then she, too, began to run.
The man stopped just short of them, open-mouthed, his face a study in hope, and fear that hope will be yanked away. “Your Highness?”
Robin nodded.
The round woman had come up beside the man. Tears coursed down her face. She said calmly, “Teazle, don’t keep ‘em standing in the yard. Look like they’ve been dragged backwards through the blackthorn, both of them, and probably hungry as cats.” But she stepped forward and touched one tentative hand to the prince’s cheek. “You’re back,” she whispered.
“I’m back.”
They were fed hugely, and Robin was decently clothed in linen and leather belonging to Teazle’s eldest son. “We should be going,” the prince said at last, regretfully.
“Of course,” Teazle agreed. “Oh, they’ll be that glad to see you at the palace.”
Moon saw the shadow of pain pass quickly over Robin’s face again.
They tramped through the new ferns, the setting sun at their backs. “I’d as soon . . .” Robin faltered and began again. “I’d as soon not reach the palace tonight. Do you mind?”
Moon searched his face. “Would you rather be alone?”
“No! I’ve been alone for—how long? A year? That’s enough. Unless you don’t want to stay out overnight.”
“It would be silly to stop now, just when I’m getting good at it,” Moon said cheerfully.
They made camp under the lee of a hill near a creek, as the sky darkened and the stars came out like frost. They didn’t need to cook, but Moon built a fire anyway. She was aware of his gaze; she knew when he was watching, and wondered that she felt it so. When it was full dark, and Robin lay staring into the flames, Moon said, “You know, then?”
“How I was . . .? Yes. Just before . . . there was a moment when I knew what had been done, and who’d done it.” He laced his brown fingers over his mouth and was silent for a while; then he said, “Would it be better if I didn’t go back?”
“You’d do that?”
“If it would be better.”
“What would you do instead?”
He sighed. “Go off somewhere and grow apples.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be better,” Moon said desperately. “You have to go back. I don’t know what you’ll find when you get there, though. I called down curse and banishment on your mother and father, and I don’t really know what they’ll do about it.”
He looked up, the fire bright in his eyes. “You did that? To the king and queen of Hark End?”
“Do you think they didn’t deserve it?”
“I wish they didn’t deserve it.” He closed his eyes and dropped his chin onto his folded hands.
“I think you are the heart of the land,” Moon said in surprise.
His eyes flew open again. “Who said that?”
“A guard at the front palace gate. He’ll probably fall on his knees when he sees you.”
“Great grief and ashes,” said the prince. “Maybe I can sneak in the back way.”
They parted the next day in sight of the walls of Great Hark. “You can’t leave me to do this alone,” Robin protested.
“How would I help? I know less about it than you do, even if you are a year out of date.”
“A lot happens in a year,” he said softly.
“And a lot doesn’t. You’ll be all right. Remember that everyone loves you and needs you. Think about them and you won’t worry about you.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“A little.” Moon swallowed the lump in her throat. “But I’m a country witch and my place is in the country. Two weeks to the east by foot, just across the Blacksmith River. If you ever make a King’s Progress, stop by for tea.”
She turned and strode away before he could say or do anything silly, or she could.
Moon wondered, in the next weeks, how the journey could have seemed so strange. If the Seawood was full of ghosts, none of them belonged to her. The plain of grass was impressive, but just grass, and hot work to cross. In Little Hark she stopped for the night, and the blond boy remembered her.
“Did you find your teacher?” he asked.
“No. She died. But I needed to know that. It wasn’t for nothing.”
He already knew the prince had come back; everyone knew it, as if the knowledge had blown across the kingdom like milkweed fluff. She didn’t mention it.
She came home and began to set things to rights. It didn’t take long. The garden wouldn’t be much this year, but it would be sufficient; it was full of volunteers from last year’s fallen seed. She threw herself into work; it was balm for the heart. She kept her mind on her neighbors’ needs, to keep it off her own. And now she knew that her theory was right, that earth and air and fire and water were all a part of each other, all connected, like silver and gold. Like joy and pain.
“You’re grown,” Tansy Broadwater said to her, but speculatively, as if she meant something other than height, that might not be an unalloyed joy.
The year climbed to Midsummer and sumptuous life. Moon went to the village for the Midsummer’s Eve dance and watched the horseplay for an hour before she found herself tramping back up the hill. She felt remarkably old. On Midsummer’s Day she put on her apron and went out to dig the weeds from between the flagstones.
She felt the rhythm in the earth before she heard it. Hoofbeats, coming up the hill. She got to her feet.
The horse was chestnut and the rider was honey-haired. He drew rein at the gate and slipped down from the saddle, and looked at her with a question in his eyes.
She found her voice. “King’s Progress?”
“Not a bit.” He sounded just as she’d remembered, whenever she hadn’t had the sense to make enough noise to drown the memory out. “May I have some tea anyway?”
Her hands were cold, and knotted in her apron. “Mint?”
“That would be nice.” He tethered his horse to the fence and came in through the gate.
“How have things turned out?” She breathed deeply and cursed her mouth for being so dry.
“Badly, in the part that couldn’t help but be. My parents chose exile. I miss them—or I miss them as they were once. Everything else is doing pretty well. It’s always been a nice, sensible kingdom.” Now that he was clo
ser, Moon could see his throat move when he swallowed, see his thumb turn and turn at a ring on his middle finger.
“Moon,” he said suddenly, softly, as if it were the first word he’d spoken. He plucked something out of the inside of his doublet and held it out to her. “This is for you.” He added quickly, in a lighter tone, “You’d be amazed how hard it is to find when you want it. I thought I’d better pick it while I could and give it to you pressed and dried, or I’d be here empty-handed after all.”
She stared at the straight green stem, the cluster of inky-blue flowers still full of color, the sweet ghost of vanilla scent. Her fingers closed hard on her apron. “It’s heliotrope,” she managed to say.
“Yes, I know.”
“Do . . . do you know what it means?”
“Yes.”
“It means ‘devotion.’”
“I know,” Robin said. He looked into her eyes, as he had since he’d said her name, but something faltered slightly in his face. “A little pressed and dried, but yours, if you’ll have it.”
“I’m a country witch,” Moon said with more force than she’d planned. “I don’t mean to stop being one.”
Robin smiled a little, an odd sad smile. “I didn’t say you ought to. But the flower is yours whether you want it or not. And I wish you’d take it, because my arm’s getting tired.”
“Oh!” Moon flung her hands out of her apron. “Oh! Isn’t there a plant in this whole wretched garden that means ‘I love you, too?’ Bother!”
She hurtled into his arms, and he closed them tight around her.
Once upon a time there ruled in the Kingdom of Hark End a king who was young and fair, good and wise, and responsible for the breeding of no fewer than six new varieties of apple. Once upon the same time there was a queen in Hark End who understood the riddle of the rings of silver and gold: that all things are joined together without beginning or end, and that there can be no understanding until all things divided are joined. They didn’t live happily ever after, for nothing lives forever; but they lived as long as was right, then passed together into the land where trees bear blossom and fruit both at once, and where the flowers of spring never fade.
© 1992 by Emma Bull.
Originally published in After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien,
edited by Martin H. Greenberg.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Bull’s novel War for the Oaks is one of the pioneering works of urban fantasy. Her post-apocalyptic science fiction novel Bone Dance was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. She sang in the rock-funk band Cats Laughing, and both sang and played guitar in the folk duo The Flash Girls. She is Executive Producer and one of the writers for Shadow Unit, a web-based fiction series. Emma currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The Abominable Child’s Tale
Carol Emshwiller
Did Mother say to always go down?
But maybe she said always go up.
Did she say follow streams, and then rivers? First paths and then a road? And then a road all covered with hard stuff? Did she say there’d be a town if you go far enough?
Or did she say, whatever you do, don’t follow roads? Stay away from towns?
She always did say, “You’re not lost.” She always said, “You’re my forest girl. You know which way is up.” She didn’t mean I know up from down, she meant I always know where I am or that I can find out where I am if I’m not sure.
But Mother didn’t come back. Even though she’s a forest girl, too. She had her best little bow, her sling shot, and her knife.
I waited and waited. I made marmot soup all by myself. It turned out really good so I was especially sorry she wasn’t here. I barred the door, but I listened for her. I studied my subtraction and then I read a history lesson. I didn’t sleep very well. I’m used to having her, nice and warm, beside me.
Did she say, “If I don’t come back after three days, leave?” Or did she only say that when I was little and not that much of a forest girl like I am now? Way back then I would have needed somebody to help me.
She did say that I never listen and that I never pay attention, and I guess this proves it.
But what if she comes back and I’m not here? What if she’s tired? I could help. I could pump up the shower.
Except what if she doesn’t come back?
I was always asking if we couldn’t go where there were people, and she was always saying, “It’s safer here.” And I’d say, “What about the mountain lions?” And she’d say, “Even so, it’s much safer up here—for us.”
She said not to let anybody see us, but she didn’t say why.
She did say people are always shooting things before they even know what they are.
What if I’m some sort of a creature that should be shot? Eaten, too?
Or is she? We don’t look much alike. Maybe she’s the odd one.
I asked her about all that once but she wouldn’t talk about it.
Now and then, in summer, when there are people camping all the way up here, we go yet higher and hide out until they’re gone. Mother always said, “Let’s us go on a camping trip, too,” but she couldn’t fool me with that. I knew she wanted to keep us secret, but I played along. I never said I didn’t want to go. If we were in trouble some way I wanted us to stay out of it.
I know a lot more than she thinks I do.
• • • •
I wander all over trying to see what happened to her. I see where she crossed the stream and started down to the muddy pond, but then I lose track. I check the pond, but she never got there. There’s a fish on the line. I bring it home for supper.
The thing is, do I want to spend my life here alone? Waiting? Does Mother even want me to? I can come back after I see what’s beyond the paths. Mother said two-story houses and even three-story. Also I’d really, really like to see a paved road—once in my life anyway.
I wait the three days, looking for her all that time, then I leave. I take Mother’s treasure. She had this little leather book. Even when we just went up to hide, she took that with her and kept it dry.
There are lots of books here—actually twelve—but I don’t take any except the one Mother always wrote in and locked shut.
I stop at the look-over and think to go back, just in case she came home exactly when I left, but I did leave a note. Actually two notes, one on the door and one inside. The one inside I shaped like a heart. It was on the paper we made out of stems. I don’t need to tell her where I’m headed. She’ll see that. I’m leaving a lot of clues all along the way.
• • • •
It turns out exactly like Mother said it would: A river and then a bigger river and a path and then a road, and after that the wonderful, wonderful paved road. Pretty soon I see, in the distance, a town. Even from here I can tell some of the houses are tall.
I wait till dark. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me but it’s a town with plenty of bushes around. I don’t think it’ll be hard to hide. I never had a good look at those people that come in the summer. Mother tried to get me away as fast as she could. I’ve only seen them from a distance. Besides, they were all covered up with clothes, sunglasses, and hats.
We have those.
I want to see what they’re like so I can see what might be wrong with me. Though maybe Mother did something really, really bad a long time ago and had to hide out in the mountains. They couldn’t put me in prison for something she did, could they?
• • • •
I wait till dark and then I creep into town. Everything is closed up. Hardly any lights on. (I know all about electricity, though I’ve never seen it till now.) I wait till everything except the street lights are out. I wait for them to go out, too, but they don’t.
I wander back yards. I try to see into windows, but I waited too long for those street lights to go out. Every house is dark, except now and then an upstairs window.
&nbs
p; In one yard I hide behind laundry where somebody’s mother forgot to bring it in at dark. Mother sometimes did that, too, but I didn’t. She had a lot on her mind. She was always worried.
I just about give up—everybody seems to be in bed—but then I see somebody sneaking out a window, trying to be quiet. It’s that very yard where the laundry is still out.
I hide behind the sheets, but so does whoever crawled out the window. We bump right into each other. We both gasp. I can see on that one’s face that it’s going to yell but I’m about to, too, and then we both cover our mouths with our hands, as if we both don’t want to attract attention. Then we stare.
If this one is how I’m supposed to be then I’m all wrong. This one looks like Mother, not like me. I have way too much hair. All over. Are they all like this? But I’ve suspected something was wrong with me for a long time, else why did Mother act as she did, always keeping us away from everybody?
I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. I’m not used to how they look here or how they dress. Then I see it’s got to be a girl. She’s wearing this lacy kind of top. I never had anything like that but Mother did. This one seems to be just my size. At least my size is right.
She’s like Mother, no hair anywhere except a lot on her head. Mother always said it was a disadvantage, not having hair all over. And it was. She was always cold. But I’d rather be like everybody else.
So we’re standing there with our hands over our mouths staring at each other.
Then she says, “Can you talk?”
And I say, “Of course. Why not?”
What an odd question. What does she think I am? Except I am all wrong. I was afraid of that. But we’re exactly the same height, and both of us is skinny. I’m wearing shorts and a T-shirt. She wearing shorts, too, and this fancy blouse. And I see now she has the beginnings of breasts just like I do. Hairiness looks to be our only difference. I don’t have that much on my face—thank goodness. I guess.
“Am I all wrong?”
It’s the question I’ve been wanting to ask just about all my life but didn’t know it till right now.
Fantasy Magazine Issue 58, Women Destroy Fantasy! Special Issue Page 16